


without tenderness there's something missing

by parishilton



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1980s, Alternate Universe - Rock Band, M/M, inspired by chemical toilet, punk!mac and popstar!dennis
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-06
Updated: 2018-10-06
Packaged: 2019-07-25 22:46:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16207235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/parishilton/pseuds/parishilton
Summary: “you looked more intimidating in yesterday’s newspaper.”mac raises an eyebrow. “i thought you asked dennis who i was.”“i asked if you were hisfriend,” maureen clarifies, “because he has no real friends - onlystaff. he’s got bouncers who kick people out for saying his last album tanked, models who do drugs with him but disappear in the morning, and his dad requires a paycheck before he’ll even clear out an afternoon to meet dennis for drinks.”





	without tenderness there's something missing

**Author's Note:**

> tenderness / general public (1984).
> 
> with eventual appearances by frank, the waitress, bill and maureen ponderosa, liam and ryan mcpoyle, carmen, country mac, and an extremely vague reference to cricket.

" _reinvent_ myself?” dee asks, making a grotesque face aimed at her father. “what’s wrong with my image now?” she undoes the tied arms of the jean jacket that's wrapped around her waist and stuffs her arms into it, hoping it deters people from looking at her bony arms. dennis always tells her that when people stare at her in public, it's not because she's a recording artist. he tells her it's because she has the boniest goddamn arms anyone has ever seen. dennis' aren't much better, but dee knows that when people are staring at dennis, it's not because of his arms. it's because they actually recognize him. dee hasn't gotten recognized by anybody in a couple years, at least. even the doorman at her favorite club forgets her name - and she's a regular. 

frank stares at her with his bushy eyebrows, which cinch together. “what _image_? you haven’t put anything out there since your debut album five years ago! you have about as much name recognition in this country as that idiot cokehead we just saw down the street banging his hands on those trash cans, who thought they were real drums!”

“well, what do you want me to do? these men you hire to write my songs don’t understand how to write lyrics from a woman’s perspective!” she whines. “they think every woman out there wants to be madonna!”  

“every woman out there _does_ want to be madonna!” frank runs one hand over his head's baldness, as if suddenly checking for spontaneous hair growth. “it doesn’t matter - you don’t have the tits or the talent, anyway. with you, it needs to be all shock factor. we’re gonna put you into a nice little box that the american public can identify with and feel good about throwing their money at.”

“it’s always about the money with you!” she cries, flailing her arms up.

“i’ll buy you the fanciest shoes you can find if you just sit your ass down and stay for this goddamn meeting!”

dee drops her arms back down to her sides and shrugs. “free shoes? why didn’t you just say so?”

“and shut your can when he gets here - don’t go blabbering at him about the _lyrics_. nobody gives a damn about lyrics anymore - it’s 1989, for christ’s sake. you’ve got the attitude of someone whose discography is the size of _bob-fucking-dylan_ , and all you did was write one lousy hit song that never would have made me any goddamn money if i hadn’t stolen it from that diary i found under your mattress!”

“that one song still made the radio, and not any of those ridiculous ones your yuppies in suits came up with! you can’t buy my silence with shoes, either - i’ll let this guy know that i’m not to be messed with!”

frank just chuckles and looks down at his watch. “this guy isn’t the type to scare easily. you know what - go ahead and blabber at him all you want. we’ll see how long before you get spat at.”

“ _what_?” dee asked, looking confused. “what kind of businessman acts like such a degenerate?”

“the kind of businessman who  _is_ a degenerate,” frank replies, and slaps his newspaper down in front of her.

the front page of the arts section stares back up at her. the headline reads _punk rocker gives fan a tattoo on stage - concert hall gets evacuated_. a blurb in the middle of the paragraph has been underlined, presumably by frank, which says that the guitarist and vocalist of the group had no way of knowing whether the needle was dirty or not, but told the press that his fan wanted the tattoo and he wasn’t going to back down. the article claims that the same guitarist and vocalist put on a surprise outdoor concert outside the same venue the following day, to protest the evacuation of the previous night’s show. the streets became so mobbed with hooligans that the police cars that came through to break up the crowds ending up getting their windows smashed in with baseball bats. “ _this_ freak?” dee cries out, jabbing her finger at the black-and-white photo of one very surly-looking mac mcdonald. “this nutjob is meeting us _here_? in broad daylight? i thought vampires couldn’t go outside this time of day!”

“yeah, yeah,” frank says. “get used to the rabid raccoon look because you’re going to be sporting it too soon. it wouldn’t kill you to wear a little more makeup, would it?”

“god, shut up!” she screeches, attracting the attention of several of other customers in booths opposite them. “i’ve never seen this guy’s name in anything other than bad press!”

“bad press is better than the kind of press you have, which is _none_.”

dee grits her teeth together and braces her hands on the table to hold herself back from violently attacking her father. “you sound just like dennis!” she hisses. “not everything is about money or press!”

“look, kid,” frank says, and places a hand over her’s on the table, “i know that being a one-hit-wonder has left you feeling vulnerable and desperate for attention after all these years of being totally anonymous at parties, especially when your brother gets non-stop praises and hugs everywhere he goes. i also know that i’ve poured a lot of money into your career and it’s gotten me nowhere. it’s time to reinvent you.”

“i am not-” she growls -”a _one hit wonder_.”

frank snorts. “oh, no? what would you call yourself? a _one song suzie_? or how about _nothing_ , since nobody remembers that song to begin with?”

“ _that_ song played on the radio here fifteen minutes before you showed up - late.”

“speaking of being late, this prick better show up soon. i’ve got a date with a stripper who looks just like your mother before she got that botched neck lift.”

* * *

“one coffee - black,” charlie orders, slumping down into his booth with all the grace of an insomniatic junkie, which he is. rewind ten years and this guy taking his order would be begging him for an autograph and practically falling all over himself just to give him a free coffee and some muffins or doughnuts. he's been coming to this place almost every morning this week and nothing happens. it’s relieving in some ways - he’s never liked copious amounts of attention, always stuck back in the shadows at his height of fame. he used to live in a mountain lodge just north of philly where he’d had a home studio and a wall of guitars hung up in half the rooms. the filthy studio apartment he rents now barely fits his pull-out sofa bed and piano. he’d sold almost everything he owned, but he just couldn’t part with that damn piano.

the waiter nods and starts to pour the coffee into the mug set out in front of charlie when his face does something strange, sort of twists up into a gentle half-smile. “hey, aren’t you-”

“yeah,” he says, “charlie kelly.”

“-overdue for a shower?” charlie stares uncomprehendingly at the man until he realizes that he most definitely has pit stains in one of the very few tee shirts he owns, which makes sense. anyone would stink after wearing the same shirt for a week straight without showering. “sorry,” the waiter says with a wince, “it’s just that - my boss says he doesn’t want the homeless in here, paying for their coffee in pennies and harassing the customers anymore.”

“harassing the-” charlie’s voice begins to rise manically, “-who’s harassing the- _i’m_ a customer! i’m not homeless - _you’re_ homeless!”

“i’m not homeless,” the man says, frowning.

“well, neither am i!” charlie yells. “i’ve been lauded as one of most talented songwriters of all time by _rolling stone_ , you know. i could write the next fucking _purple rain_ album on these napkins if i wanted to!” he grabs the napkin dispenser on his table, rips out a huge chunk of napkins, and starts hurling them upwards, sending them scattering in a flurry all over his booth, as well as all over the floor.

the guy looks up at ceiling like he’s praying to god for lightning to rip through it and strike charlie down. when he finally looks back down to charlie, he’s looking rightfully apologetic. he must finally realize who charlie is. “you’re not gonna pay all in pennies, are you?”

charlie reaches down and grasps at the wallet in the back of his jeans. he’s got some nickels and dimes too - he’s not some kind of animal. “no! and i want a doughnut!”

“fine,” the waiter says with a final sigh and mutters as he stalks off, “fucking bums.”

charlie makes a loud throaty sound of indignation and adjusts his eyeglasses and baker boy hat. he waits for his coffee and doughnut while trying to stack the individually packaged jellies and jams into a pyramid. just when he’s about to use the apricot one as the topper, a woman’s hand places a small white plate in front of him, along with his cup of coffee. the apricot jam slips from his hand and knocks over his whole pyramid.

“shit, lady!” he yells. “watch it!”

“sor _ry_ ,” the woman says in a tone which would signify that she couldn’t be less sorry. when charlie looks up, he inhales sharply. she’s beautiful - maybe as petite as charlie himself is, which is nice - nice to not be shorter than a pretty girl for once. she’s blonde, with a button nose, and a harsh expression. the longer she looks at him, the stranger her face becomes, like she’s witnessing a peacock spreading it’s feathers out. “hey, aren’t you-”

charlie makes a face. “overdue for a shower? yeah, yeah, i get it. what, did you and that other guy have a little pow-wow in the kitchen about how some squatter came in with a dirty shirt on and sullied up the whole place?”

her mouth opens and puckers like a fish. “i was going to say, aren’t you charlie kelly?”

“oh,” charlie says, “yeah.”

she tucks her hair behind her ear and looks nervously back and forth between charlie and one of the napkins charlie had thrown across the table earlier. “could you - could you maybe sign one of those?”

“oh, yeah! of course!” he looks around everywhere for a pen, even leaning down to check beneath the table and proceeding to whack his head on it when he tries to sit back up.

“oh, i have a pen!” she says suddenly, pulling one out of her green apron pocket. “here.”

while signing the napkin, charlie tries to think of a good chat-up line. he’s come up with nothing by the time he’s finished. reaching out to give her the napkin, his hand brushes up against her’s and it’s like an electric shock. “do you, uh...do you get off anytime soon?”

“no, i practically live here,” she says while making eye contact with the napkin.

“oh, that’s good to know! i could definitely make this my regular place.”

“that really won’t be necessary.”

“you like my music, right? i got a really gorgeous piano at my place. i could teach you to play! only it’s not the easiest instrument to master - it’d probably take a couple years. how do you feel about cats? i’ve got a few. are you allergic? i’m not really willing to part with them - maybe i could shave their fur off. actually, that’s not a bad idea! i can snip off a little cat fur and bring it back here for you to smell, so we can figure out if you’re allergic.”

the waitress stares at him, her mouth wide open again. “yeah, i don’t really agree to spend _years_ with someone i just met who smells like a litter box full of rotten eggs.”

“ _oh_ ,” charlie says, hearing his voice waver with disappointment, “maybe just one piano lesson, then?” charlie asks.

she winces. “no, i don’t think so.”

he watches her turn on her heel, stuffing the autographed napkin hastily into her apron pocket. he huffs a sigh and looks down at the pen, which bares the name of the shop. he watches her walk next to a booth where two people sit, one gangly-looking, badly made-up blonde and an older, pudgy-looking balding guy. oh, so the wait-staff couldn’t care less about prostitutes chatting people up in their establishment, but a guy trying to mind his own business who just hasn’t done his laundry in a while, that’s not okay?

the waitress is moving to refill the older man’s cup of coffee when he shoos her away with one fat-fingered hand. “i’ll holler if i need ya, lady,” he says gruffly.

“can i actually get-” the prostitute says, one hand raising to get the waitress’ attention. she’s wearing neon pink acrylic nails and has cheap-looking gold bangles stacked up on her wrist. the waitress has already stalked off before hearing what the prostitute was going to ask for. charlie snickers to himself and grabs the nearest napkin, getting to work.

writing over the past few years for him has been a struggle. he used to wake up in the middle of the night like clockwork in his adolescence, his mind riddled with surreal imagery, easily finding metaphors for everything. lately he either doesn’t dream at all or he comes home drunk and passes out, never remembering if he dreamed by the next morning. sometimes when he sees a pretty girl, he’ll try and scribble something down on whatever is lying around - usually that’s toilet paper or the back of receipts. there’s a whole desk drawer in his apartment with scraps of paper with terrible lyrics chicken-scratched onto them.

“hey, lady! refill me!” the old guy shouts, startling everyone in the shop. charlie’s head jerks up, pulling himself out of the haze that comes with his writing process. he watches the waitress stomp out of the kitchen, her arms bursting through the swinging doors with the strength of a bull. charlie is impressed.

“yes?” she spits out, one hand on her hip.

“coffee now!”

“god! all you musician-types here are so entitled and creepy!” she pours the coffee so it almost spills over the brim of the cup.

“what are you talking about, lady?” the old guy asks, clearly agitated. “dee is the only musician here and that’s one hell of a generous label!”

“dad, what the _hell_?” the prostitute shouts. now charlie is _really_ confused. was her pimp actually her father, rather than a client?

“i’m talking about _that_ guy-” the waitress yells, while pointing over to charlie “-who wants to shave his cats and send me the hair!” she stomps away back the way she came.

the older guy and the young, slutty woman both turn to look at charlie over their shoulders. their eyes both squint, like they’re trying to place how they know him. “hey, you!” the woman shouts. several heads turn to glare at her as her voice booms loudly throughout the place. “get your ass over here!”

out of morbid curiosity, charlie actually walks over when her hand beckons him. he slouches as he stands in front of their booth, not in the least concerned about his height not impressing this disgusting woman or her equally disgusting father.

“you look real different in the daylight, mac,” the old guy says with a chuckle. “let me guess, all that leather you wear and metal you stick through your face is part of your character? do you do that so people don’t recognize you on the street? that’s genius. did you get the idea to disguise yourself from _kiss_?”

“that’s not mac, you imbecile.” the woman rips the newspaper that was in the man’s clutches away from him and points very aggressively at a photo. “mac has a baby face and is clean-shaven. he probably can’t grow any facial hair and got piercings so people wouldn’t notice that he looks like a little kid! _this_ guy-” she says, gesturing towards charlie like he’s not there, “-is scruffy, _totally_ hairy, and has this whole vagrant thing going on.”

“i’m not homeless, goddammit!” charlie screeches suddenly, the tone the loudest and most high-pitched of any this crowd has heard thus far. both the man and the woman look at him very apprehensively.

“okay, okay, squeaky!” the woman says, snorting. “you really shouldn’t raise your voice - this is a family establishment.” charlie’s fists ball-up and he squashes up the napkin he was writing on inside his hand.

“well, who the hell _are_ you, then?” the man asks.

“charlie kelly. i’m a folk musician. i’ve worked with bob dylan, okay? i’ve written songs for every sixties and seventies group there is! i toured with paul simon, for christ’s sake!

“do you keep in contact with those guys?” the woman asks, her face lighting up. she pats her side of the booth, gesturing for him to sit beside her. “why didn’t you just say so? sit, sit!”

“look, man,” the old guy begins, “i’ve got a really famous client who i’d be willing to talk to about a writing collaboration. you look like you’ve really fallen on hard times. we can pay you up the asshole!” he offers before fishing around in his jacket pocket for something. he hands a business card over to charlie.

“dad, that’s so sweet of you to say! i knew you were just kidding when you said i was a nobody!” the woman clasps her hands together excitedly.

her father gives her a look like she’s the roadkill charlie's tour bus would have to drive by every-time they were coming home to philly. “i wasn’t talking about you, you dumb bitch! i was talking about your brother!”

“ _what_?” she grabs her father’s cup of coffee and throws it at him, drenching his shirt. “why do you have to give dennis every good opportunity!”

“well, for starters, he’s talented!” frank says, while wringing out the bottom of his shirt with his hands. charlie hears the coffee dripping from the booth down to the floor and hopes his shoes don’t get covered in coffee. all the cat hair on his carpet in his apartment will get stuck to his boots. “secondly, you greedy bitch, you’re already here to meet someone else in the industry!” he says, guestering to the newspaper on their table, with one sleeve that’s dripping coffee onto it.

charlie looks down at the newspaper curiously, letting go of the napkin in his fist to pick it up. he regrets it almost instantaneously when the woman’s long, bony arm slides out like a snake and snatches it up in her fist. “hey!” he yelps.

ignoring him, she looks over his chicken scratch with wide eyes. “wow, this is fantastic. hang on - does this say _herald_ or _harold_?” she flattens the napkin out until some of the wrinkles disappear and points to the word in question.

“ _herald_ ,” charlie clarifies with annoyance. “it’s about seeing an angel in broad daylight. now give that back!”

she looks at him with awe and simply slides it back over to him. “if you can write me something halfway as good as this shakespearean crap you wrote about that whore of a waitress, i’ll pay you whatever you want. i’m dee.” she sticks out her hand for charlie to shake and he does so cautiously.

“alright, alright. let’s start with another doughnut.”

dee throws a five dollar bill onto the table. “i’d go up to the counter if i were you,” she says with mirth. “your _angel_ of a waitress seems to hate all of us. i don’t think she’d come back to our table if it were on fire and we were screaming for a bucket of water.”

* * *

mac struts into the coffee shop wearing his favorite leather duster over a sleeveless tee shirt with last night’s beer stains all over it, plus black jeans and scuffed-up black boots. he had plenty of time to change if he’d really wanted to - but it’s all about keeping up appearances. the public wants someone to offset the current flamboyancey of rock music, someone who spits beer into the crowd before crowd-surfing, whether he accidentally kicks somebody in the face with his boot or not. they’ll take whatever they can get and mac is all they can get. he tries not to dwell on that fact too often, or it makes him wonder whether his fanbase would be half as loyal if there were more burgeoning punk acts in the area.

as it had been for the last decade, philly was dried up of all creative resources and seemed to recycle old pop acts rather than provide any respite from them. now that this generation’s parents were scared of what few androgynous-looking pop stars existed, who dry-humped the microphone stand instead of playing an instrument, they decided to rock out to male glam rockers with tangled, bird’s nest-looking hair and smeared make-up instead. the high schoolers and college kids didn’t want to associate with those acts anymore. mac’s old manager had always repeated the same thing about the supply and demand, shoving the knowledge down mac’s throat that he was only popular because the demand for punk music was so high and the supply was so low. he told mac that eventually, once more talented punk bands started emerging, mac would have to start making more traditional rock music. after the tenth time of hearing that, mac had said _fuck you, dicknose_ , and had fired him.

he’d since had several offers from management teams who had wanted mac to put out formal lp’s and do album signings across every major city in the country. mac had argued that the whole point to punk music is to get _the man’s_ hands off your junk, not to go up to _the man_ and suck him off for a couple grand. like hell is he going to prostitute himself for some quick cash - he grew up dirt poor and has no issue slumming it for the rest of his life as long as he can record his music uninterrupted and spread mixtapes out throughout the city to random fans and record stores, making the kids go crazy trying to hunt them down the way mac’s family would have done setting up easter egg hunts for him if they’d had any money when mac was growing up.

one of mac’s groupies - a fat chick named artemis who had probably slept through everyone in _chemical toilet_ except for mac - said she’d recently met a guy who was so fucking nuts that mac just _had_ to meet him. she’d said that this guy had taken her on a date to an underground gambling society and then fucked her on a park bench, shortly before they both were arrested and then the guy had made his own daughter come and bail them out. mac had thought the story was decently funny, so he’d agreed, since he has nothing better to do on a sunday. he knew that this guy’s name was frank and that he was a manager, but that’s all he really knew. artemis had sworn up and down that frank only cared about hanging out with lunatics and drug addicts, that he wouldn’t try to get mac to change who he was, since mac was perfectly depraved enough already.

he keeps his sunglasses on as he walks up to the counter and throws himself into a bar stool, hoping to blend in with all the hungover people his age who he presumed were here. the waitress who takes his order is wearing a green apron - but her nametag is covered in sludge. mac’s not sure if it’s from coffee or if maybe the kitchen is just full of mud and dirt. he wouldn’t be surprised - the place is dingy, but that’s better for mac’s anonymity.

he continues to eye up the waitress as she pours his coffee. she’s young, with short, crazy blonde hair, and has only the slightest bit of eyeliner on. the rest of her face is bare, making her look pretty, albeit plain. he thinks his sunglasses are hiding the fact that he’s blatantly staring at her chest, her apron hanging low and exposing her cleavage from under a black tank top, until she throws a glare at him.

handing mac his coffee, she says, “if you keep staring at my tits, i’ll have my boss kick you out.”

mac frowns, pushing his sunglasses up onto his head so they push back his bangs and reveal his eyes. trying his best to look confused, he says, “oh, no. see, i was just trying to read your nametag-”

“no, you weren’t,” she says, and turns her back on him.

mac shrugs. _touche_. he doesn’t really need to get laid, anyway. sex for him is more a formality than a necessity. he likes to bang girls in the apartment when his bandmates are home, just so they know he _can_. sometimes the girls don’t get off. hell, sometimes _mac_ doesn’t get off and the girls run home with their heels in their hands, ashamed because they think it’s their fault, but his roommates still buy it and that’s all that really matters.

“i guess neither of us are good enough for her,” someone says as they slide up to the counter and plop down in the bar stool beside him. 

mac stares at him for a long moment, wondering why this guy cares that mac had noticed her. “she your type?”

the man looks surprised. his facial hair has crumbs in it from what mac assumes to have come from a doughnut. he’s wearing a dirty old hat that makes him look like a street urchin who probably went to woodstock and kept the hat he wore there so he could use that as an anecdote whenever he meets anybody new. he looks like he hasn’t bathed in a week - no wonder the waitress had turned him down first. _shit_ , compared to this guy, mac was prime real estate. now he actually is wondering why she turned him down after being asked out by this weirdo first. “isn’t she everyone’s?” the weirdo asks, his voice rising in pitch like a girl’s might, edging on hysterical.

mac shoots him his classic _cool guy_ look - raised eyebrows and slight grin. “is she?”

“you hit on her but you don’t think she’s pretty?” he asks in disbelief.

“i’m tall, dark, and handsome,” mac says, gesturing towards himself, “so it’s her loss - not mine.”

the weirdo makes a face like mac is unbearably stupid, which makes mac a little annoyed. “you’re not tall. your coat is swallowing you up like a snake swallows a mouse, crushing it’s fragile little body up, leading to it’s total submission.”

mac makes a loud _pffting_ noise and groans. “who _are_ you? the sixties are over, man. being a drifter who thinks they’re a poet isn’t cool anymore.”

the weirdo actually laughs, but not like he thinks mac is funny. he laughs like he’s going through coke withdrawals and someone just asked him why he looks so tired. “oh, i’m _sorry_! let me just put some fake blood onto my shirt and sing about murder and setting my mom’s house on fire! would that make me cool, _dude_?” his voice is so squeaky that it reminds mac of a mouse.

mac feels a surge of confidence at the guy’s admittance that he knew who mac was. “uh, _yeah_. everyone knows that arson is badass.”

“well, that’s just-” the guy starts, before his face crumples up, “-okay, that _is_ true. did you _actually_ set your mom’s house on fire? my mom is fucking terrified that her house will blow up unless she turns the stove on and off three times before bed. i’ve never told her that doing that when she’s tired is probably more likely to blow the house up. you know, in case she forgets to turn it off the last time.”

mac shifts around in his bar stool. “my mom lit her own house on fire by falling asleep in bed with a lit cigarette.”

“shit,” the guy says, eyes going impossibly wide, the undereye bags looking considerably darker. “didn’t you-”

“that was just for the song, dude.” there’s a long silence where mac is sure that this guy is going to threaten to ruin his reputation - not that some hobo could convince anybody that a punk rocker’s life was a lie. the guy probably couldn’t fight his way out of paying a five dollar overdue _blockbuster_ fee. mac’s sure as hell not gonna divulge that the same thing he lied about in a song happened to punk legends sid and nancy at the _chelsea hotel_ and that’s what gave him the idea to take credit for his mom’s house burning down.

finally, the guy takes a long, drawn-out breath. “i’m charlie kelly, the folk musician who-”

“oh, fuck!” mac yells. a family with two little kids in a booth across the room gasps, but mac couldn’t care less. “you’re the guy that tied yourself up to that tree, who got run over!” mac hollers. he watches as charlie winces and holds his hands out, trying to signal to mac to shut up. “why are you homeless now, dude?”

“i’m not _homeless_! jesus, why do people keep asking me if i’m homeless?” he seems to mutter to himself under his breath.

“did you really crack a rib? now _that’s_ badass!”

“it was humiliating! i didn’t even save one goddamn tree, never mind that whole park!”

“chill, dude.” mac reaches over and pats charlie condescendingly on the arm. “i’m sure those drifter guys would still have been proud.”

charlie’s face scrunches up like he’s eaten a lemon. “what _drifter guys_? what the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“uh, you know...jack backpack?”

“jack _kerouac_? jesus christ.”

“weren’t those guys, like, fake buddhists? why would you want to be like _them_? they’re all dead and they probably went to hell for not believing in jesus,” mac says disdainfully, curling his lip as though the mere thought of not believing in jesus was inconceivable. the insufferably self-righteous way of viewing other people’s religions wouldn’t have surprised charlie if it’d been expressed by some hick mother from a bible-thumping state, but mac presented himself as though he were the antidote to that lifestyle.  

“what does _that_ matter to _you_?” charlie asks incredulously. “aren’t you some anti- _everything_ -just-to-be-cool guy and doesn’t _that_ include jesus?”

mac shrugs. “jesus is all-knowing. he knows which parts of my music are exaggerations meant to hype up the crowds. i’ll start repenting when i’m, like, thirty.”

“if jesus is real, he’ll smite you down and you won’t _make_ it to thirty.”

“ _dude_ ,” mac says, frowning, “why would you say that, man? that’s so fucked up.”

“oh my god! you’re a phony! punks don’t care about getting smited!”

“who are you calling a phony, dude?” mac yells, getting up off of his bar stool and putting on a gruff voice that’s much deeper than his own. “you’re some tree-hugger hippie guy who wears leather boots! you don’t care about cows!”

“about - _cows_?” charlie asks, scowling. “i never claimed to care about cows!”

“you care about trees and cows eat that shit, okay? like, grass and shit. it’s - it’s nature! it’s the food chain!”

“it’s not the _food chain!”_ charlie says, raising his voice. “cows don’t kill trees! trees aren’t alive!”

“oh!” mac yelps, pointing with a shaking hand. “oh, you’ve done it now, man! they’ll for sure kick you out of the hippie commune for that!”

“will you two please shut the fuck up?” the waitress says, suddenly standing back at the counter, with both arms crossed over her chest. mac wonders how long she’s been standing there. “you’re scaring all the customers!”

as it turns out, the customers soon get over it when the door swings open and a breeze blows in _dennis reynolds_ , one of the biggest names in pop music of the last five years. half the customers stare at him like he’s the queen of fucking england, looking like they’d rather stick their hand into the cage of a rabid dog than muster up the courage to go up to him, and the other half smile and wave at him as if they’re old friends from high school, or something. it’s one of the weirdest things mac has ever seen and mac saw one of his bandmates drunkenly getting a tattoo of a _care bear_ doing arm curls with a dumbell last week.

the family with the two little kids who had gasped when mac had sworn earlier slide out of their booth and make their way over to dennis, looking starstruck. dennis grins enthusiastically as the mother, who turns to present a good view of her cleavage to dennis, thrusts what looks to be an autograph book at him. mac has never seen anybody holding an _actual_ autograph book before and he’d assumed they didn’t exist outside of _disneyland_ attractions and the long lines that accompanied them, for when characters would seemingly pop out of nowhere to distract you from how loudly your kids were screaming.

“i heard he’s so skinny because he feeds off of people’s attention, instead of actually eating,” charlie says, “you know, like how plants convert carbon dioxide into sugar, except he converts attention into a potluck dinner.”

“that’s stupid,” mac says, snorting, “i heard he’s so skinny because he accidentally got a tapeworm when he went on that caribbean cruise with that _sports illustrated_ model and he decided to keep it and name it _bowie_.”

“that’s even stupider,” charlie mutters, picking at his hands. “hey, can i get that muffin now?” he asks the waitress, who’s still standing behind the counter.

dennis is in her line of vision and she’s staring after him the way mac would look only at _iggy pop_ or maybe _wade boggs_. mac watches as she makes her way over to dennis in a daze, not bothering to respond to charlie’s request of a muffin that he’d apparently tried to order multiple times. dennis has to awkwardly shake the two small children hanging off his legs away from him in order to accept her hug. they seem to get to talking about something important and mac gets the distinct feeling that they’ve either slept together or are en route to that when charlie suddenly hops ungracefully down from his stool and rushes out of the cafe altogether, amidst screams of charlie’s name coming from across the place from some shrill woman who mac doesn’t recognize when he spots her.

her screaming seems to snap dennis out of his conversation with the waitress, as he briefly touches her elbow, while stepping around her, in order to saunter over to the booth that the crazy woman is in. he flings himself dramatically into the side of the booth that’s empty, like he owns the place, and mac scoffs. he doesn’t know whether dennis is friends with these people or just likes to impose on the lives of his adoring, clueless fans. regardless, his behavior is exactly what it’s said to be in the media.

then again, the media alleges mac to be a violent anarchist hellbound on tearing apart the whole city on a good day, and a blood-lusting vampire that was bitten by dracula himself on a bad day. mac finds himself wondering if maybe basking in the attention of his fans is really that big of a deal and if dennis’ ego has maybe just been exaggerated.

“dee, you stupid bitch! why didn’t you tell me there was coffee spilt all over this side of the booth?” dennis reynolds shouts, to the chagrin of the family that had just been clamoring all over him, who leave immediately. dennis is huffing and puffing and dabbing at his pants with several napkins. “you’re damn lucky these aren’t my _jordache_ jeans.”

or maybe not.

“stop whining like a little girl - you sound like deandra,” the older man says with a laugh. “speaking of, you better calm your sister down before my new client gets here. he’s supposed to be some kind of badass punk kid.”

_well, shit._

artemis hadn’t said that frank was old as shit, with a body that could have resulted only from the sexual escapades between _mr. potato head_ and a garden gnome. it also made no earthly sense to mac why artemis would think someone who manages a pop artist who has more fans under the age of thirteen than _the karate kid_ movie does would also be a good manager for a band like _chemical toilet._  mac’s band weren’t family friendly - the closest he’d been to signing an autograph for a woman and her kids was probably when some pregnant chick came up to him after a show and asked him for money to buy a beer.

but mac’s bandmates would think he was lying if he went home and told them he’d bailed on his meeting because chart-topping pop star _dennis reynolds_ was hogging the same manager’s time. mac is shit at booking venues and even shitier at finding recording studios. all the cassettes they’ve put out so far were recorded in their shitty apartment and they can’t keep doing that forever. mac _hated_ having a manager - he wanted another one like he wanted a hole in the head, but his bandmates would kill him if he didn’t _try_. at the very least he’s going to have to do something to prove to his band that frank manages dennis reynolds before he can bail, which means he’s got no choice but to introduce himself to the three screaming idiots in the booth in front of him.

“take a picture - it’ll last longer,” dennis reynolds sneers at mac from his peripheral vision, not even looking away from his two booth buddies to berate mac. under his breath, he seems to mutter, “can’t they ask for autographs _after_ i’ve eaten, for christ’s sakes?”

“dennis, that’s not a fan, you narcissistic dick. that’s dad’s new client,” the blonde one says, sounding far too happy to be the keeper of information that dennis isn’t privy to. their petty bickering reminds mac of two of his bandmates who were also siblings. mac can’t wait to curse artemis out the next time he saw her at a show for neglecting to tell him that the woman who picked her and frank up from jail was dennis reynold’s sister.  

“so the metal in your face isn’t just part of a stage persona?” frank asks, craning his neckless body around, trying to squint at mac from behind his daughter from their side of the booth. “does it hurt if somebody tugs on the one through your ear?”

frank’s two children turn simultaneously to inspect mac’s ear and face jewelry. mac carefully watches dennis’ look of fascination when he realizes mac has two barbell eyebrow piercings at the end of one of his eyebrows and several more on each ear, including a safety pin stuck through one earlobe. it really wasn’t that big of a deal - mac had stuck a few safety pins through his friends lips before to pierce them, but dennis’ eyes are wide, like he’s never seen anything like it. mac clears his throat, feeling more ballsy than he was a moment ago. he sticks his chin out boldly. “nobody’s ever had the guts to try.”

“not even in bed?” dennis reynolds asks him, raising his own very bare eyebrow up. when mac doesn’t answer, dennis chuckles. “i’m just kidding, man. come on, sit down.” mac glances down at the open slippery side of the booth that dennis is sitting on, which appears to be covered in whatever dennis had been trying to clean off of his designer jeans. if mac doesn’t sit down, it makes him no better than dennis, some nancy boy who probably refused to do so because he’d never had to do his own laundry before and didn’t know that stains can be removed.

“deandra, clean up the mess you made!” frank bellows suddenly. “don’t make your brother do it. i wouldn’t have had to move next to you if you hadn’t decided to throw a temper tantrum like a baby.”

“it’s _your_ fault i threw coffee at you!” the blonde leans against the back of the booth and folds her arms across her chest, indicating that she’s not moving anytime soon. “ _you_ clean it.”

“you absolute blithering imbeciles,” dennis says, his voice coated in disbelief. “you really can’t go five minutes without me around to babysit you, can you?” dennis haughtily plucks another napkin up and begins to wipe down the booth for mac. after a minute, he looks up at mac and pats the seat beside him. “clean as a whistle.”

mac stares down at him in shock. he’d expected the three of them to continue arguing about who should have to clean the coffee for long enough to where mac could actually slip out of the cafe undetected. he certainly hadn’t expected fruity, pompous _dennis reynolds_ to voluntarily wipe down the dirty booth for mac like a practiced housemaid who really loves her job. it had totally emasculated dennis and mac didn’t know whether he found that really pathetic or really satisfying. as he sits down beside dennis, he wonders if dennis wanted to clean the seat for mac because he made a bad first impression and can’t deal with the thought of being disliked by anyone.

“let’s cut to the chase. you’re the real deal,” frank says to mac, elbowing his daughter sharply at her ribcage. she squawks unattractively, bending over like the wind has been knocked right out of her. “you know how many shitty mixtapes i’ve listened to in the past year, when i could have just been fucking all the groupies in town and asking them who the hottest bands are….last week i got some tape in the mail called _green day_. can you believe that shit? _green day._ what’s that all about - saint patty’s day? they’ll never make it - they should have gone with something like _chemical toilet_.”

mac grins despite himself. “damn straight.” as frank continues to rant about the shitty mixtapes he’s listened to, all sung by high schoolers complaining about their teachers, mac takes a cautionary glance to where dennis is sat, right beside him. it’s harder sneaking looks at people when they're already sitting so close. mac doesn't remember a time where he was so hyperaware of the lack of space between himself and someone else. he ends up with his face mashed into people's sweaty armpits while crowdsurfing on a weekly basis, yet feels less comfortable just sitting in a cafe next to dennis reynolds than doing that. dennis looks right back at mac and the corner of his mouth quirks imperceptibly. it’s vanished almost as fast as it came, and mac is left wondering if he’s imagined it. mac looks down into his lap, smiling before he can squash down the urge, and wonders why his stomach has started to churn.

“dennis, go find the waitress and get some coffee for me.” frank squirms around, still unable to see around his daughter. “she won’t come over here because she hates me and your sister.”

dennis looks at his father blankly. “no.”

mac snorts, but doesn’t dare to look at dennis again. “did she turn you down too?”

dennis snorts. “the waitress? you’re kidding, right? she would never turn me down. i was asking her to put my cassette tape on.”

“you’re making her play your album?” mac asks, wrinkling his nose.

“oh, god.” dee begins groaning. “it’s bad enough you have to play your music in _my_ car. now you’re forcing the poor girl to play it here? what if she gets fired?”

dennis leans back into the booth with a smug expression on his face, stretching his legs out underneath the table. mac shifts himself slightly away, like dennis has a catchy illness. “some people would pay a lot of money for the free concerts you get inside your car, dee.”

“some people have bad taste,” dee counters, smirking.

dennis looks remarkably unphased. “not the waitress. she _loves_ when i give her my mixtapes to play in here. it gives her something to think about later when she’s alone in bed.”

frank and dee don’t seem to care about the revelation that dennis did not, in fact, force some adoring fan to play his _own_ music in the coffee shop. they blaze right through that conversation into another, this time about dennis’ bizarre habit of leaving trash in the backseat of dee’s car, but yelling at anybody who so much as gets a fingerprint of his car’s windshield.

the music is humming along underneath the quiet rumblings of chatter in the coffee shop. it would be easier to pick up on the lyrics without frank’s loud yammering and dee’s whining over the state of her backseat. mac trains his ears to focus on the song until he can make out some of it. _your own personal jesus - someone to hear your prayers, someone who cares._ depeche mode, mac recognizes it immediately. the album came out this year and did pretty well. it sure as hell doesn't sound like anything he would have guessed _dennis reynolds_ would have voluntarily listened to. he'd sooner guess _blondie_ or _cyndi lauper_. 

maybe it's less about the genre for dennis when he's making his mixtapes and more about what he wants the listener to interpret from them. for instance, he might want the waitress to think about him like a biblical figure. mac doesn't know if that thought sits right with him. it's heresy, after all. he wouldn’t be surprised to know if dennis thought of himself on the same level as jesus. dennis reaches over to rest his arm behind mac’s head. mac shifts even further away. if dennis keeps this up, trying to claim more and more space for himself, mac will be falling out of the booth and onto the floor within the next five minutes. that’s not what mac’s reputation needs - a beefy guy like himself being seen in public being shoved out of a booth by some rail-thin effeminate pop star.

mac wonders if the waitress actually goes home with dennis’ cassette tape mixes in her purse, just to touch herself while listening to them. he doesn’t understand why dennis doesn’t just sleep with her. it’d be easy. _hell,_  mac could probably sleep with her now that she’s seen him hanging out with dennis. instead of offering to fuck her when she practically tries to jump his bones, dennis just pulls all these weird mind games on her, which seems like a lot of work with absolutely no payoff. maybe he just gets off on knowing people he’s uninterested in are crazy over him. seems like the kinda twisted shit he’d be into.

“hey, kid….mac?” frank asks, looking at him like he’s retarded. “you’re being awfully fuckin’ quiet for a guy who screams himself hoarse for a living.”

“not much of a living,” mac says, folding his arms over his chest, “but it’s a great way to relieve stress.”

“you go clubbing?” dennis asks him suddenly. “ _that’s_ a great way to relieve stress. i’ve got vip access at every one in philly.”

mac just looks at him. what’s this guy playing at now, acting like he’d invite mac out to party with him? dennis hangs out with cookie-cutter type pop stars who would run the other way if they saw mac on the street. that’s not even taking into account the fact that mac would never even accept and be seen out in public with a guy who all his bandmates have called a faggot before, while jamming together in their apartment. “that’s great, man,” mac says, but he couldn’t give two shits.

“so, what do you think?” dennis asks impatiently. his fingers are drumming on the table-top like mac is being purposefully obtuse. “we could go any night.”

 _any_ night? mac stares at dennis some more. from how dennis acts, mac would have figured his social calendar would always be booked ahead by a full month. either dennis acts like he’s more popular than he is - which, judging by the excited patrons of the coffee shop, mac doubts - or dennis is going out of his way to see mac again.

“that’s a great idea,” frank says, “let’s all go. deandra, wear something like mac does. maybe you’ll make page six if you get a photo taken with him.”

dee stabs at her plate with her fork grasped so tight inside her fist that her knuckles are bright red. “i’m not going to dress like some bad imitation of the guy who stabbed his own girlfriend to death.”

“ _oooh_ , now you’ve done it,” frank says, clapping his hands together like a diabetic kid being handed a bowl of ice cream. “mac, feel free to project your saliva wherever you see fit.”

“dad!” dee shouts, looking livid. “you can’t tell someone to spit on me!”

dennis is glaring at frank now, though it’s gone largely unnoticed by frank. mac is starting to think that he made a grave mistake in not speaking before the outing was decided for them. when dennis turns back to mac and asks him, looking hopeful, _“well, are you gonna spit?”_ , mac tries not to think about how weird it is to hear _dennis-fucking-reynolds_ , a household name, talk about mac’s saliva, of all things. “i’ll save it for the stage,” mac says. then, “you know, he did it because she asked him to, then he killed himself because he couldn’t bear to live without her.”

he’s used to people who know nothing of the underground punk scene comparing every single guy wearing a leather jacket with a piercing stuck through their ear, lip, or nipple with sid vicious. it’s a really fucking stupid thing to do, but mac can’t see the point in lying. _the sex pistols_ are personal heroes to him, just like he’s sure dee’s personal hero is, like, _cher_ , or something. maybe that’s dennis’ hero too.

“is that,” dee begins to ask, looking confused, “an attempt at sounding romantic?”

frank looks excited again. he nods and squints his eyes like he’s formulating a plan. “you know what sounds romantic? you two should probably make out at the club if you want to get some publicity. it would help both of your careers out to land in page six.”

dennis twitches in his seat, just a slight shoulder movement that wouldn't be noticeable if dennis hadn’t suddenly removed his arm from behind mac. mac’s not sure what to say, when he thinks frank is just looking to make some cash on dee. “i’m not really into that kind of publicity,” he settles on, and can see the lines in dennis’ body relax again from the corner of his eye.

frank looks positively murderous. “then what kind of publicity _are_ you into?”

mac scoffs defensively. “uh, the kind that values my band based on it’s stupendous talent - not on random chicks they think we’re banging.”

dennis grins from beside him and reaches out to high five mac. “nice, man. that’s _exactly_ what’s important - the _music_ , right?” he high fives mac enthusiastically.

“if publicity based on sexual escapades isn’t important to you, than why have you been in the tabloids for the past five years with stories about you banging every cocktail waitress in philly?” dee asks, resting her chin in her palm and looking like there’s no answer on earth than could satisfy her.

“it’s not my fault if photographers have to be _called_ in order for you to get publicity, dee,” dennis says, “but they follow me because _i’m_ interesting.”

“you’re not _interesting_ , dickbag,” dee mimics with a mocking tone. “your sex life is abhorrent - people just want to see all your mistakes laid out in front of them so they can feel better about their mistakes.”

“do you think i’m interesting?” dennis asks, turning to mac, and ignoring his sister completely. it seems to set her immediately over the edge - she attempts to slam her cup of coffee down dramatically on the table in order to get his attention, which would have been fine if the coffee hadn’t shot back up and splashed her in the face. she stands up, with coffee all over her chin and neck, and crosses her arms. mac wonders if acting out for attention and not receiving it is both of the reynolds’ kryptonite. mac also wonders if neglecting to answer dennis’ question will result in dennis throwing a temper tantrum like the one dee is currently throwing.

“you know what?” she asks, squinting her eyes menacingly, “i’ll see you weasels later tonight.”

“yeah, whatever,” dennis says without looking up at her. “mac, are you coming too?”  

* * *

mac has been waiting in line alone for twenty minutes before dennis finally shows up. the girls in front of him are wearing varying neon garments and nylon stockings. mac wonders if this place dennis suggested is more of a lounge than a dance club - some of these people seemed inappropriately outfitted for dancing. there were a few, well - _people_ behind him in line who looked like men, but who were wearing women’s clothing and heavy eye-shadow. he knows a girl who hadn’t been born a girl, but she wore jeans and ripped tank tops just like everybody else in his circle of friends, and not much makeup at all - not clownish clothes and costume jewelry, which look like halloween costumes designed by john waters, if he were blind from a horrific sewing machine accident.

one of the men dressed in women’s clothing had smirked at mac when he’d gotten behind mac in line and given him a very obvious once-over. mac had, for the first time in his life, wished he’d worn a tee shirt without any rips in it. he’s feeling really exposed and impatient by the time dennis shows up, in what, comparatively speaking, appears to be casual-wear, his blazer checkerboarded and his pants made of shiny pvc, and look like plastic.

“what are you doing here?” dennis laughs, as if he’s just caught mac preparing to put on a punk concert for a classroom of diaper-wearing preschoolers or a nursing home full of _frank-sinatra_ -loving elderly folk, instead of waiting for dennis at the club where he’d told mac to be. “you don’t have to wait in line, dumbass.” he beckons mac to follow him and turns on the suspiciously graceful heels of his feet.

as mac passes the line, several people begin to boo him, but he’s not sure if it’s because he’s cutting them in line or if it’s because he’s dressed like the kind of guy who normally would only come to one of these places to start shit with the freaks who came here - namely because, well, he _is_ that kind of guy. when they finally reach the doorman, some guy’s arm swings out of nowhere and catches mac’s bicep.

“hey, asshole, wait in line like everyone else!” the guy shouts. his hair is styled in a ridiculous pompadour that’s partially bare in the front. he looks about forty years old - a bit old for the scene - and his hairline is starting to recede quite a bit. his black mascara is smudged under his red-rimmed eyes like he’d been crying over the release of the latest _duran duran_ single before dragging his ass here.

dennis’ arm is slung around mac’s shoulders suddenly as he turns to face the guy to address him head-on. mac’s fists have tightened and he really wouldn’t mind cutting the sure-to-be miserable night short by starting his second mob of the week, but he’s curious as to how dennis - who acts like he’s above confrontation - will handle this jackass. he’s also somewhat comforted by the weight of dennis’ arm around him and the fact that dennis is taller than him - which makes no sense, really. dennis probably couldn’t take _boy george_ on without spraining his wrist. if this asshole decided he wanted to take off his earrings and fight like a man, mac would have to protect dennis’ slim and unathletic body from getting pummeled. “hey, todd. how’s it going?” dennis asks.

“reynolds,” the guy says, breaking into an artificial smile. “i heard you had a new sponsor.” he pauses to appraise mac’s general appearance, safety pin stuck through his earlobe and all, and smirks. mac raises an eyebrow. he hardly thinks he looks like he could be anyone’s sponsor and, apparently, this asshole agrees. “did this guy kill him and throw him in the _hudson_?”

even mac, who appears in the paper more than he actually reads it, isn’t in the dark about _that_ scandal. the notorious new york city club-kid-on-club-kid murder had been a source of constant debate back at mac’s apartment for the past couple years. they’d gone back and forth on the matter, first considering it a case for club kids being more hardcore than they’d previously given them credit for, but ultimately settling on the unanimous opinion that the club kids were just full-on nutcases, and not the cool, romantic kind, like sid and nancy.

“i don’t need a sponsor to give me permission to self-medicate,” dennis says, his eyes darkening, “but if _you’re_ looking for that, i’m sure a pharmacist can point you in the direction of the _rogaine_.”

“reynolds, dennis. you’re on the list.”

mac turns back around to face the doorman, causing dennis’ arm to slip down. he ignores the weird feeling in his stomach that he’s never gotten from his bandmates touching him the same way.

“how about my friend?” dennis asks.

“name?” the doorman asks, sighing heavily and not looking up from his clipboard.

dennis leans in close to the burly man, close enough to share the man’s air. “come on, bill. don’t give me that. we’re friends; we’ve shared cigarettes down that alley dozens of times.”

bill finally looks up at dennis and chuckles. “i’m _working_ , man.” he closes his facial expression back off into careful disinterest and looks back down at his clipboard without bothering to look at mac at all, which likely means that mac is not getting into this club anytime this century. “mcdonald, mac. you’re on the list.”

mac raises an eyebrow at dennis. “i _know_ i’m not on this list.”

dennis leans in impossibly close to mac, closer than he was to the doorman, close enough to where his mouth brushes up against mac’s ear. “ _nobody’s_ on the list,” he whispers hotly into mac’s ear. “it’s blank. bill knows _everybody_.” when dennis pulls away from mac, he looks back to bill, slips him a hundred dollar bill, and winks. mac is sure dennis thinks he’s being charming, but wonders how many women dennis has pulled the same shit with. it’s exactly the kind of smarmy, cliche showcase of infamy that mac expected to see before coming here, done with the express purpose of impressing mac, which might be why mac feels like he’s on a first date.

as they’re walking away, mac hears bill the doorman turning away todd the asshole. “not on the list,” bill is repeating monotonously.

“that’s impossible!” todd begins to say before his voice fades into background noise, “i was on the list last night!”

dennis snickers to himself, his hand reaching for mac’s elbow as he guides him carefully through a crowd that’s formed by the coat service desk. “this might seem crazy for now, but you’ll get used to it if you stick with me. it’s kind of an addiction, just like anything else, you know?”

“you don’t ever get tired of it?” mac asks, ignoring dennis’ question, which seems to be rhetorical. “doesn’t it mean you have to live up to the public’s ridiculous expectations of you and always have to monitor what you say and do?”

“absolutely,” dennis says, “that’s why you’re here.”

“i thought i was here to get my band on your dad’s label,” mac says, trying not to smile and let his face give away that he was interested in seeing where dennis was going with this.

“no, you’re here to reinvent my sister’s image, but, here’s the thing, mac,” dennis starts to say, his hand raising to rest on mac’s chest to stop him from walking further into the club. “my sister is never going to go punk.”

mac shrugs. “that’s too bad - she could pull it off. she’s pretty boney and emaciated-looking and she’s got that platinum blonde hair. that’s the look for pretty much every girl at our shows.”

“that your regular type?” dennis asks, staring intently into mac’s eyes. it’s a little unnerving, made more-so by the fact that dennis’ hand is still flat on his chest.  

“it’s not about having a type. it’s about convenience. it’s a means to an end.”  

“great minds think alike,” dennis says, letting his hand fall from mac’s chest, but not before his fingertips trail down mac’s chest just a few short inches. mac doesn’t know whether it was on purpose or by accident, but dennis couldn’t really...be queer, could he? his sister had said he’s been rumored to have slept with dozens of women, after all. “the sex is legendary for the girls,” dennis says. “in fact, it becomes the standard for all their future endeavors. for _me_ , though, it’s totally unsatisfactory. i’ve started dreading being approached by women because they can’t make me feel better than a sold-out arena does. what ever could, after you’ve had that?”

mac, who both found sex to largely be unsatisfactory, and also only played at venues that could hold maybe seventy-five kids max, had no insight to give, so he simply shrugged. “for me, getting drunk and screaming into a microphone works, even if it’s just me alone in my apartment, with my neighbors banging on my wall.”

dennis chuckles. “we can get started on the first part of that now. let’s head over to the vip section and i’ll order us a round of shots. you ever been behind the velvet rope?”

mac fights the urge to roll his eyes. the idea of exclusivity had never much appealed to him, not when he grew up too busy parking cars for extra cash to daydream about one day using valet himself, and not when he grew up too happy secluding himself in garages at house parties, with his buddies and some guitars, to want access to the private golf courses and country clubs that the kids who threw those house parties had. if dennis thinks that mac is here for bragging rights - to have a story to tell his buddies later - he’s dead wrong. his bandmates, who were also his roommates, would just accuse him of being a pussy and laugh in his face if they knew that he were here. mac felt as though he were being offered something he’d never wanted and spent the better part of his life fighting against. “no, i haven’t. i like going to clubs where everybody has an equal shot at being punched in the face during a mosh pit, not clubs with rooms you can’t get into if you’ve never blown whatever celebrity is in there already.”

“ _mac_ ,” dennis says, with a slight chuckle, “we fight with words here, not fists. we’re not animals.” dennis flashes a pearly-white smile at two men in full suits who are stationed in front of a room that seems to be disconnected entirely from the rest of the club. it looks more creepy than luxurious, at least from the outside.

the first man pushes the door that was only halfway open a little wider and the second man unhooks the velvet rope barrier, allowing them both to step inside. mac glances around, immediately surprised with the lack of light and music. a skylight from above lets blackness sweep down into the room, which is full of velvet, plushy sofas and one long glass table. the music that booms from outside only partially manages to filter into this room, making mac feel like he’s inside a fishbowl, albeit one with more velvet than water.

“seems ineffective,” mac says, taking in the very small group of people already inside. some look familiar, but mac doesn’t know how. one particularly busty blonde woman mac recognizes immediately as from a local news station. she’s bending over the glass table, nose pressed down while she snorts something. mac looks back to dennis. “maybe if you’d have punched that todd guy out before, he wouldn’t be here tonight.”

dennis just grins at mac. “who says i didn’t want him here, getting turned away in front of all those people? the fun is in stalking your prey and messing with them until their reputation is totally ruined. once they’re gone, they’re gone from the scene for good, and it’s time to start over with someone else, and starting over is _really_ tedious.”

“why are you telling me all this?” mac asks, trying not to feel special and admit that even one percent of dennis’ tricks of exclusivity have worked on him, even if they weren’t tricks dennis was even aware he was doing. it’s nice, sometimes, to feel special. “i almost fucked up your plan because i wanted to fight him."

“i'd make an exception to my system only in that scenario,” dennis says truthfully, “because it would have been badass to see."

mac bites back a smile. usually being called badass didn't do much for him, not when it came from slutty girls at his shows, impressed with his antics, not even when it came from charlie earlier that day. so why did _dennis_ saying he was badass make him feel so nervous? 

a girl suddenly appears at the vip section, bouncing up and down in a pair of pink heels, and waving excitedly at dennis from the other side of the velvet rope. mac cringes and assumes she’s a crazed fan until he notices dennis raising a significantly less excited hand back to let her know he sees her. one of the men dressed immaculately, in a full suit, turns to look at dennis. dennis simply nods once and the man allows her to cross the threshold.

“hey,” she says, her hand clamping onto dennis’ forearm, “my brother says there’s some people outside claiming you put them on the list.”

“did bill say if my sister was one of them?” dennis asks, frowning. “he _knows_ dee.”

“couldn’t hear him over the street noise,” she says, looking apologetic. finally releasing her grip from dennis’ arm only when the contact threatens to spill her drink, she turns to look at mac. “is this a new friend?”

“yes, this is mac,” dennis says to maureen before turning back to mac and saying, “maureen is a good friend. she’ll keep you company while i go figure out whether my idiot sister invited whatever homeless-looking guy she said she met today." dennis flings his wallet onto the sofa that mac is sitting on. “maureen, would you watch my wallet?” he shouts as he jogs away.

“sure,” the girl says, smiling at dennis and plopping down beside mac on the sofa. extending one hand, complete with long pink fingernails and several silver rings, she shakes mac’s hand. “you looked more intimidating in yesterday’s newspaper.”

mac raises an eyebrow. “i thought you asked dennis who i was.”

“i asked if you were his _friend_ ,” maureen clarifies, “dennis has a lot of bad influences in his life and he doesn’t need any more.”

mac scoffs. he definitely doesn’t hold enough power over dennis to be _any_ kind of influence over him, good _or_ bad, nor does he like the feeling of being sized up by some pint-sized stranger. “so, it’s true. you people fight with catty remarks instead of just decking one another. dennis said that’s because you guys aren’t _animals_ ,” mac explains, his voice tinged with sarcasm.

“mac, have you ever heard the expression _‘dogs have owners, cats have staff’?”_ maureen asks, drumming her pink fingernails on the glass table in front of them.

mac wrinkles his nose. “so, i’m not allowed to deck anybody in here, but they’ll let in fido or garfield?”

maureen gives him a blank look, her lips set into a thin line. “no,” she says, shaking her head. “i’m saying, _all_ people are animals. in this analogy, dennis would be a cat. do you know why?”

mac blows out a huge breath, not following her logic at all. “because he’s temperamental and moody?”

maureen just laughs, the first laugh mac has seen within the walls of this club that hasn’t sounded artificial. in fact, if her hair wasn’t teased and hairsprayed to hell and back, he thinks her stiff bangs might have flopped around as she laughed and tipped slightly over on the sofa. “because he has no real friends - only _staff_. he’s got bouncers who kick people out for saying his last album tanked, models who do drugs with him but disappear in the morning, and his dad requires a paycheck before he’ll even clear out an afternoon to meet dennis for drinks.”

“oh,” mac says, taken aback. “that, um. that really blows.”

“so, which are you?”

“i’m not a bouncer _or_ a model,” mac says, “i’m in a punk band."

“no,” she says, glaring. “which are you in this _analogy_? do you want dennis to own you, to adopt you into his life? or do you want dennis to shower you in money and publicity until you get bored? are you a dog or are you a cat? because dennis doesn’t need another cat.” when mac says nothing, but continues staring at her as though she has three heads, maureen sighs. “what are your intentions?"

mac grimaces. “my _intentions_ are to get out of here as quickly as possible."

“you scared?” maureen teases, blowing hot breath into his ear and scraping her long nails lightly over his neck.

looking around the vip section, bathed in the moonlight from the skylight, the odds are against him. she could jab his aorta with her nails and rip out his tongue if she wanted. despite spitting in people's direction during shows, mac was mostly full of empty threats when it came to violence. he'd been beaten up more times in his childhood than he'd successfully beat anyone _else_ up, and had managed to, at most in his youth, not do much more than give some solid indian sunburns. the handful of other people around the vip room were all too busy doing coke or drunkenly making out to notice mac being threatened. he’s sorely lacking in eyewitnesses. mac certainly _is_ scared, though he’d never admit it. mac shudders unpleasantly as he scooches to the other side of the sofa. “get away from me, freak!"

realization dawns over maureen’s face as she looks over mac appraisingly. “oh, i see. you’re interested in cats, but not _pussy_ cats _."_

mac’s face blooms with color and his hands go sweaty. “i don’t know what you’re talking about."

“stupid _and_ earnest,” maureen tuts, “what a poor combination. you really are a dog.” maureen reaches for the wallet dennis had discarded before leaving to check back in with her brother and fishes out a thick wad of cash.

“i’m sorry,” mac says, voice rising, aware that he doesn’t sound sorry in the slightest, “but what makes you think you can shit all over me and question my intentions with dennis when you’re actively scamming him?"

“when you’re a cat,” maureen says, throwing back her drink, “the world is your litter-box.”

**Author's Note:**

> zodiacmac.tumblr.com


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